Inovatools USA LLC introduced the “FightMax” INOX VHM-HPC roughing/finishing milling cutter for specialty steel materials. The tool is formed from special ultrafine-grain carbide. The four-edged HPC design has an unevenly split and an unevenly twisted geometry with highly polished chip space. This ensures quiet, vibration-free concentricity, and quick and reliable chip removal. The VHM-HPC roughing/finishing milling cutter is available in short and long versions with Ø 6.00 mm to 20.00 mm.

US Cutting Tool Consumption Rose 8.3% for 2017

U.S. machine shops and other manufacturers’ consumption of cutting tools declined 5.4% from November to December, but the year-end totals represented solid improvement over the previous year. The figures included in the December 2017 Cutting Tool Market Report show the December total of $175 million were 10.0% higher than last December’s total, and raised the final total for 2017 cutting-tool demand to $2.195 billion. That signifies an 8.3% increase over total 2016 cutting tool demand.

Cutting tools represent “a primary consumable in the manufacturing process,” according to the U.S. Cutting Tool Institute and AMT – the Assn. for Manufacturing Technology, which present the monthly Cutting Tool Market Report to document U.S. manufacturers’ consumption of cutting tools. As such, the monthly CTMR provides insight to the current level of domestic manufacturing activity.

The CTMR data is based on information reported by participating companies who represent the majority of the U.S. market for cutting tools.

“After posting two years of a shrinking cutting-tool market, it is great to see 2017 turned the corner and finished in the black with a solid increase over 2016. The economy appears to be firing on all cylinders with companies expanding, manufacturing jobs being added and overall productivity improving,” commented USCTI president Phil Kurtz. “These trends all look to continue into 2018. The last-minute new tax cuts will further bolster the growth as companies use the savings to replace old machines or buy new ones to expand capacity. We hope for continued growth through 2018.”